Day 3: The How of Blogging

We have discussed who the bloggers are, what they're blogging about, and the role of blogging in their lives. But what about the how? Bloggers invest significant time in creating and updating their blogs, as well as driving traffic and retaining their audiences.

One in four bloggers spends ten hours or more blogging each week. The most influential bloggers are even more prolific. Using Technorati Index data, we analyzed the posting and tagging behaviors of bloggers according to their Technorati Authority. Over half of the Technorati top authority bloggers post five or more times per day, and they are twice as likely to tag their blog posts compared to other bloggers.

From their use of RSS feeds, video, photos, and mobile updates, bloggers are also tremendously sophisticated in leveraging the available tools to make their blogs more robust.

Bloggers employ a variety of technologies to attract visitors. Top audience-building strategies include: listing their blog on Technorati and Google, commenting or linking to other blogs, and tagging blog posts so that they are more easily searchable. All of this hard work has paid off — half of active blogs attract more than 1000 monthly visitors.

Time spent blogging

Bloggers invest a significant amount of time in creating and updating their blogs, as well as other blog-related activities.

One in four bloggers spends ten hours or more blogging each week, and about half spend more than five hours weekly on their blog. Only 15% of active bloggers spend less than one hour per week on their blog.

Blogging with help

While the majority of bloggers manage their blogs solo, among professional and corporate bloggers, one in ten pay staff to contribute to their blogs.

One in five corporate bloggers have paid full-time or part-time staff. Across both professional and corporate blogs, a higher percentage have unpaid help.

Technorati 100, Next 500, and Next 5000 comparisons

We analyzed the Technorati index data to see whether higher-authority bloggers behaved differently from other bloggers.

Blogs with higher authority are typically updated more frequently than blogs with lower authority. The Technorati Top 100 blogs had more than twice as many postings in June 2008 as the next 500, and more than 12 times as many postings as the next 5000.

Technorati Top 100 bloggers are twice as likely to post ten or more time daily compared to the next 500, and 14 times as likely than the next 5000. Looking again at Technorati's tracking data shows how often the Top 100 bloggers post each day compared to the next 500 and the next 5000. The Technorati Top 100 are prolific, with 43% posting ten times per day or more often. Only 8% post once a day or less frequently, compared to 13% of the next 500 bloggers, and 22% of the next 5000 bloggers.

Technorati Top 100 bloggers are twice as likely to use tags in their posts

Tagging blog posts is another way of ensuring that people can search for relevant content within a blog.

Technorati's tracking data shows that the Technorati Top 100 bloggers use tags much more frequently than the next 500 and the next 5000 bloggers. The Technorati Top 100 bloggers are twice as likely to use tags in their blog posts compared to the average of the 5MM active bloggers tracked in June.

Broad categories are the most popular tags

Technorati index data uncovers the most popular tags during the month of June. “News” was the #1 most-used tag by bloggers, appearing close to 200,000 times over the course of the month.

General categories such as news, music, video, politics, and business tend to be the most popular tags.

Technorati's top bloggers had eight blog posts tagged “News” on average

Technorati's Top 100 bloggers use this tag more than two times as much as the next 500, and 19 times as much as the next 5000. Continued on the next page

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